Town hall event: Ocean Sciences 2014

We will pose the question: can writing popular science help us get published and cited? We’ll see if the panel agrees that we can reapply our skills in writing popular science to writing scientific articles. Through this discussion the panelists will share stories about how they became interested in science writing and communication, the challenges they faced and how they overcame them.

During the last 10 minutes, we will introduce the ClimateSnack concept, and explain how it can help early career scientists with their writing skills and how they can get involved.

[Lunch boxes will be available for the first 75 attendees]

The panel will consist of the following experts (in alphabetical order):

Heather Galindo, Assistant Director of Science, COMPASS (@HM_Galindo). As Assistant Director of Science for COMPASS, Heather Galindo helps connect science and scientists to the media and policymakers via workshops, communication trainings, conference symposia, presentations, and peer-reviewed publications. She came to COMPASS following a postdoctoral position in fisheries genetics at the University of Washington, and received her Ph.D. in biological sciences from Stanford University’s Hopkins Marine Station. Heather’s research combined approaches from oceanographic modeling, field ecology, and population genetics to track how marine larvae move among populations (sort of like CSI, but for barnacles). She has also studied how people think about marine population connectivity and worked at the intersection of science and policy in a state-level marine planning process. Although she has officially put down her pipettor, in her free time, she still loves to explore the intertidal in big rubber boots. You can read her COMPASS blog posts here.

Kim Martini, University of Washington and DeepSea News (@rejectedbanana ). Kim Martini is a postdoctoral fellow at the Joint Institute for Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean at the University of Washington. She earned her Ph.D. in Physical Oceanography from the University of Washington in 2010. She is has a blogger at www.DeepSeaNews.com, an award-winning site that is widely considered the most popular marine science blog on the web (+100,000 visitors a month). Through a combination of hard facts and humor, she aims to educate both scientists and non-scientists about the latest research and issues in oceanography. Articles written at Deep Sea News have been used by educators in the classroom and the work has been featured on major news sites, including ABC and NPR. When not blogging, she uses observations from moored, satellite and land-based instruments to understand the pathways that wind and tidal energy take from large (internal tides) to small scales (turbulence).

Christina Schallenberg, University of Victoria. Christina Schallenberg is a PhD candidate in Chemical Oceanography at the University of Victoria in Canada. Originally from Germany, she was seized by Wanderlust in her twenties and made Canada her new home, pursuing an MSc in Biological Oceanography at Dalhousie University in Halifax. Christina has worked as an editor for a medical magazine in Montreal and has fostered her science writing career through internships and workshops, including the Santa Fe Science Writing Workshop. She continues to write about science as a freelancer in both English and German, and she satisfies her cravings for adventure with stints of tallship sailing as well as regular research cruises, most recently to the Antarctic. You can read more about Christina on her website.

Christie Wilcox, University of Hawaii and Discover Blogs (@NerdyChristie). Christie Wilcox is a science writer and PhD Student at the University of Hawaii, where she studies the protein toxins in venomous fish. She is renowned in the science blogosphere for her delicate balance of contemporary science and scientific perspective seasoned with just the right amount of wit. Her award-winning posts have been featured in The Open Laboratory: The Best Science Writing On Blogs four years running and landed on the pages of major media outlets including The New York Times, Slate, and Scientific American. To learn more about her life and work, check out her webpage or follow her on Twitter, Google+, or Facebook.

Shortly, we will include links to background articles and publications/blogs/articles.